Author Charles Murray’s new book, “Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010,” analyzes the increasingly separate upper and lower classes in America. An excerpt from the book, recently published in Review, drew more than 1,000 comments from readers, so Mr. Murray was kind enough to engage them directly in a live chat on Feb. 3. The chat was hosted by Review deputy editor Ryan Sager. Below is an edited transcript of the chat.

Question from reader Alan: I read and reviewed your book on Amazon. Most reviewers believe your book is important because it accurately portrays the shrinking middle class. However, many disagree with your perception of the CAUSE. You seem to believe that the middle class is shrinking because of a decline in MORALITY — of middle class people being less willing to marry, go to church, and find work today than before. Most of the reviewers believe the middle class is shrinking because of ECONOMICS, because it is less easy to obtain work that pays an income that allows one to support a family. In other words, many believe that lack of MONEY, not lack of MORALITY, is what is shrinking the middle class.

Charles Murray: Actually, I don’t say the middle class is shrinking. But the economics question is the big one. Short story: working class wages didn’t rise over the last 50 years, but neither did they fall. And the bad things regarding labor force participation increased during the boom. When you talk to people in working class communities about men, the women aren’t telling you that their guys are looking desperately for work but can’t find it. An amazing number of them aren’t interested in working.

Question from reader Florida Bob: Stimulus only works if it encourages Americans to purchase-American made goods. We seem to be creating more jobs in China than America. Most of the jobs being created here are service jobs, jobs that create nothing that is trade-able for the imported manufactured goods and energy that they consume.

Charles Murray: This book isn’t about life in the Great Recession. It’s about what happened to work in the boom years of the 1980s, 1990s, and part of the 2000s when jobs were plentiful, including low-skill jobs paying good wages.

Reader Doug81: Can Mr. Murray comment on how there is a cultural divide between “classes” on how we treat money? In my opinion, the people of “Belmont” take advantage of excellent mortgage offers and credit card rebates while the people of “Fishtown” pay high interest on bad loans or loan-like transactions.

Clarification from Ryan Sager: Fishtown – for those who haven’t read the excerpt – is a real neighborhood in Philadelphia that Mr. Murray uses as a stand-in for the white working class.

Charles Murray: We’re talking about IQ more than culture. It helps to be living in a neighborhood where smart actions about money are common, but the main breakdown is IQ.Lots of smart people in Fishtown do the right thing, but (politically incorrect warning) there are more smart people in Belmont than in Fishtown.

Reader Oscar Looez-Guerra: Are we encouraging a divided society by delaying the assimilation of immigrants?

Charles Murray: Absolutely. But I have to say that all the immigrants I run across, and there are lots in my region, seem to act more like real Americans than a lot of the people already here.

Reader Randall Ward: What do you believe has been the root cause of the degeneration of the people on the bottom?

Charles Murray: The 60s have a heavy load of blame to bear, both in the political reforms of that era and the films/television cultural shifts. But that doesn’t tell us much about where we go from here.

Reader Lori: In the critiques of your book that you’ve read, is there one argument that you wish you’d considered? If not, which do you wish you’d spent more time addressing?

Charles Murray: I haven’t read any critiques yet. I hate reading reviews. But I wish I had spent more time on the “no jobs” argument. I have a few pages, but I should have spelled it out at greater length. Amazing how people think men used to make a “family wage” that they now can’t make. In constant dollars, it just doesn’t square with the data.

Ryan Sager: Could you say a bit more about what you mean by the “no jobs” argument?

Charles Murray: The idea that jobs for low-skilled people either have disappeared or pay a lot worse than they used to. It’s true for some jobs (plasterers in 2010 made $6,600 less than in 1960) but not for others (waiters/waitresses made $8000 more). On average, working class jobs pay about the same now as they did in 1960.

Reader James Redfield: To what extent do you think government out of control spending and debt is contributing the problems we face today? How greatly do you think it distorts the free markets? I live in CA. And to me it seems that our state and federal governments today are nothing more than a back-alley shakedown pay to play system. Those who can afford the bribes (unions or other large interests) get whatever they want, while the rest of us are stuck paying the bill.

Charles Murray: Hey, I’m a libertarian. I think out of control spending messes up everything. And I also think that governments behave pretty much as you describe them. They’re becoming shake-down artists.

Ryan Sager: David Brooks wrote about your book here. As with so many things, he sees it as an argument for a national service program. What do you make of that suggestion? Would it address any of your concerns?

Charles Murray: I was in the Peace Corps and I watched a lot of jobs programs in the 1970s as an evaluator. The government is a terrible employer, and that goes for national service jobs as well. Insofar as they are compulsory, they will become schools for how to pretend to work to fulfill the obligation. CETA (for those who remember the 1970s) is a classic case in point.

Reader Florida Bob: What do you see as the solution?

Charles Murray: I’m not sure there is one. There are some optimistic scenarios I can spin out, but they depend on a sea change in attitude among the upper middle class. Trying to engender that sea change (or my mite in that direction) is what the book is about.

Reader David Thomson: Are you concerned that some people will use your book as an excuse to argue on behalf of destructive wealth redistribution schemes? It is disconcerting that these folks are upset with wealth inequality—because this is a good thing. We need more of it.

Charles Murray: The left will try to use the book for that. If the data say anything, however, it is that more money isn’t going to cure what ails Fishtown. Take marriage as an example. There’s neither any quantitative evidence, nor anthropological evidence from studies of working class communities, that indicates people aren’t getting married because wages are too low. The guys aren’t getting married because they don’t have to. To oversimplify. But just a bit.

Reader Mike: Mr. Murray, thank you for your wonderful article. Part of the social unraveling that concerns me is what I perceive is the devolution in public norms of behavior. It seems everywhere I go people are debasing themselves with the lowest common denominator of behavior; wearing pajamas as clothes, foul language in public, etc. Is there evidence that the current under-30 generation is more apt to behave badly in public than previous generations?

Charles Murray: Lots of the behavior you describe is symptomatic, not causal. A lot of it is fostered by the demoralization of the upper middle class relative to its leadership role in the society. The upper middle class behaves pretty well. It won’t try to preach what it practices.

Reader Don: I suspect that if you take the average Fishtown citizen and transplant him in Belmont, he won’t become a Belmonter.

Charles Murray: Interesting question. Depends on the age. Young enough, yes. But most habits are pretty well ingrained by teenage years.

Reader Rich Gimmel: Our problem is the declining emphasis on skilled trades, specifically machinists in our case. Educators want to direct high school students to four-year colleges. I can buy gas at a convenience store from a college graduate. But I can’t fill machinist positions paying $70k/yr. Any idea what’s driving that?

Charles Murray: I wrote a book called “Real Education” that makes your point as emphatically as I can. I think the current university system is a disaster. It’s also a bubble. When are people going to realize that the BA is literally meaningless at this point, if you know nothing else except that a person has a BA?

Ryan Sager: The next question asks whether the entrance of women into the workforce is to some extent responsible for a decline for men…

Reader Bob Michaelson: Regarding the demographics aspects of our challenging economic times, which you covered extensively (I read the Journal excerpt); I know a lot of men that have had a hard time in the job market and I think the entry of women (from about 20% in the ’50s to 80% now) into the work force has a lot to do with it. Yet this is rarely discussed in major media. Would you expand on your take on this.

Charles Murray: No doubt that changes in women’s work has changed the male role and contributed to a lot of the labor force dropout among men. But I will say again, and put it in caps: MEN WERE DROPPING OUT OF THE LABOR FORCE WHEN JOBS WERE EVERYWHERE. We have to ask why.

Reader Roger: What impact do you believe the breakdown of the family structure is having (single parenthood – acceptance of same-sex marriage and parenting), as well as two parents working?

Charles Murray: I think the breakdown of marriage in Fishtown is the central event, driving most of the rest of Fishtown’s problems. That’s not a nostalgic view of marriage. It picks up on a lot of evidence about social capital and economic behavior among married people vs. single people. Same-sex marriage is not a big deal, in my view.

Reader IKZ: I think what David Brooks gets at is the idea that the government, unique in its breadth and influence, can engender change through active programs. Could those have any role in alleviating the central problem you’ve described?

Charles Murray: Get out of the way. Stop subsidizing behavior — any behavior. Conservative attempts to subsidize good behavior backfire as badly as liberal ones, by the way. Thank heavens the Bush administration’s attempts to foster faith-based programs didn’t get very far, or we would have ruined religion.

Ryan Sager: Another reader simply writes in “apprentices…” We had another article last weekend about the benefits of apprenticeships, cognitively, for kids. Is this something our society has forgotten how to do? Could it be part of the solution to social mobility?

Charles Murray: Apprenticeships would be great. But the electricians, contractors, plumbers, etc. I talk to (I live in a blue-collar area) keep telling me that they can’t find kids who want to learn their trade, even while getting good wages. These stories are more than anecdotal. They pop up wherever people are willing to ask the question.

Reader William McNew: It was not until I got a real job that I realized how useless nearly all of what I had been taught in college was. Apprenticeships seem like something more of us should be in.

Reader Elwood: Statistically speaking, what percentage of outcome – of someone ending up in Fishtown or Belmont – is attributable to behavior vs. circumstance? It would be interesting to understand that both in aggregate and for those in Fishtown who end up in Belmont, or the opposite…

Charles Murray: Independently of IQ? Can’t give you a number. “Shared environment” explains almost none of the similarity between siblings. And there are lots of smart Fishtown kids who do extremely well moving up in the world. For that matter, I moved to a Fishtown so my children would have a richer environment for developing than they would get in a Belmont.

Reader Janine H.: I haven’t had a chance to read the book yet, but when do you think the moral decline began and what forces perpetuated it? Having read “Losing Ground,” I’m wondering if you see the same causes at work here?

Reader Dan: I grew up in Philadelphia and went to school with kids from Fishtown. They qualified for scholarships at a college prep school we attended. Today they are successful people. So the right educational environment can make a huge difference. They saw standards of excellence and they lived up to those standards. Today everything is “relevant” and there are no standards of excellence.

Charles Murray: These downward trends mostly began in the 1960s. As Robert Putnam documented in “Bowling Alone,” that’s also when the declines in social capital began. Social mobility is still alive and well, thankfully. It would help if Fishtown kids weren’t stuck in Fishtown schools. Though in the real Fishtown, the Catholic schools took most of the burden and did pretty well.

Reader Anonymous: Do you think that we’ll see a politician in the next two decades speak with candor about the “American Project” in its current state, that is to say, that it is barely recognizable?

Charles Murray: Regarding politicians: Mitch Daniels or Paul Ryan could and would talk about these issues now, with wisdom and passion. Sigh.

Reader Paul: You made the comment “There are some optimistic scenarios I can spin out, but they depend on a sea change in attitude among the upper middle class.” What would those scenarios look like?

Charles Murray: I think there are lots of the elites who are recognizing that their kids are growing up to be hothouse flowers and that life in their super-wealthy/well-educated enclaves is kind of sterile and boring. It’s possible — not probable — that this recognition can expand and lead to widespread changes in priorities among the elite. Call me an idealist.

Reader Chris: Grew up in Fishtown, went through the court system as a kid, joined the Marine Corps. Now I am a senior at Stanford with straight A’s and a job in finance at a major bank lined up. Social mobility exists, you just have to work for it.

Reader Dana: What about mobility, over time, between quintiles of wealth & income. Does your data capture that? Has this mobility declined?

Charles Murray: The nation is doing better than ever at identifying talent and shipping it off to college, often to elite colleges. There are just fewer Fishtown kids who are prepared to avail themselves of those opportunities. Regarding movement among quintiles, there’s some excellent quantitative work on that question, but I can’t give you the cites off the top of my head.

Reader Naomi Roberts: I enjoyed your segment on Bill Bennett’s radio show this week. I have seen the decline of the population you describe as Fishtown. I don’t see how this group can come back. They have been too corrupted by government largesse and the institutions that might bring them back have become foreign to their daily lives.

Charles Murray: We are close to a tipping point, I think.

Reader Frank La Nasa: Working class jobs do pay about the same as they did in 1960. The problem is the costs of housing (in good school districts), higher education and health care, dramatically decreasing the amount of discretionary income available to even two-income families. Middle and working class families toil much longer for much less reward.

Charles Murray: Actually, the cost of a lot of things has gone way down. Look at the evidence for increased living standards in the working class despite stagnant income. “Good school districts” means affluent neighborhoods, hence higher housing costs. Anybody but me old enough to remember what working class housing looked like in the 1950s? Tiny houses.

Reader Don: Could it be that much of college education–especially in the liberal arts — is so . . . unreal, that it’s causing a radically different mindset in the college educated vs. others? That’s been my perception.

Charles Murray: Attending an elite college is one of the most powerful socializing experiences around–and it tends strongly toward promoting the distinct upper class culture that I describe in the book.

Reader Dan: Isn’t the mass media responsible for some of the degradation and coarseness of our culture and this further divides one group from the other. The “tyranny of low expectations” is also responsible for the descent of our less wealthy Americans. This ties into the creation of an education system for the benefit of the American Education Union members and the children are an afterthought

Charles Murray: I put a lot more blame on the initial decline on policies in the 1960s that made it easier to have a baby without a husband, easier not to work if you were a male, and easier to commit crimes without paying a price. Once those trends were set in motion, a feedback loop, decaying norms, was set in motion. The pop culture had a role without doubt, however.

Reader I am a Belmont Parent: I am a “Belmont” parent of three young children and model many of the attributes (e.g. married, both parent working, church attendance, etc) you utilized as class differentiators. They use to say that you could be removed from wealth in three generations. Based on that scary premise are there three steps I could take to better ensure my children stay on the right course?

Charles Murray: As a parent, I too have to hope for the best. No guarantees. And I’ve tried to think of something to add to that without much luck. Getting used to hard work at a young age is perhaps the best single thing you can do. Can’t say I did all that well with my children on that score, however, and they’re turning out okay. Although my daughter did used to say that her dad’s idea of the perfect summer job was to work at MacDonald’s by day and clean toilets by night.

Reader Dave Hansen: Make everyone work for it (raise inheritance taxes and eliminate dynasties); make upward mobility a reality (eliminate the de facto segregation, racial and economic, implied in private school education).

Charles Murray: If I didn’t hate taxes so much, I would be sympathetic with that argument. Let’s put it this way: I’m really glad I’ve never had enough money that my children could rely on a big inheritance.

Reader Dan Liss: What caused the decline in social capital? Did working-class people suddenly decide to become morally bankrupt?

Charles Murray: Simple: About half of all social capital is religious in origin, according to Putnam’s data. Greater secularization, falling social capital. And married males are great contributors to social capital, whether it’s coaching Little League or lobbying for stop signs. Unmarried males aren’t. Unmarried mothers don’t have time to become engaged in their communities. Marriage collapses, so does social capital.

Reader NappNazworth: When I read your WSJ article, based upon the book, I kept thinking about the TV show “Mad Men,” which seems to follow some of the cultural shift you’re talking about. But, it is the upper class that sees a breakdown, in respect for marriage, for instance. Why do think our society seems to hold to the notion of the honorable poor or working class and the wealthy living sad, pathetic, dishonorable lives?

Charles Murray: Strange, isn’t it? I was surprised myself by how strong marriage is in upper middle class America. Again having to simplify: The upper middle class has lost confidence in its role as role-model for the culture. They’re nonjudgmental about everyone but themselves.

Question by Breanne: Do you think some of the decline in the 60s was due to the new ease of living? For the first time in this country’s history people could live reasonably comfortably with minimal work.

Charles Murray: That has to have been part of it. But there was also a sense among the baby-boomers that their parents were wrong about everything, and the value of hard work, marriage, etc. was part of that. Everybody: I realize that I’ve had to be very simple-minded in a lot these rapid-fire answers. The book is a lot more nuanced. Thanks for all the questions.

Ryan Sager: Thank you so much for being here today, Charles. Some final comments from readers…

Reader Dave Hansen: Wish this live blogging could happen more often. Fascinating.

Comments (5 of 29)

PLEASE GIVE THIS A LOOK. YOU SEEM TO BE DETERMINED IN YOUR CONCERN FOR THE UNEMPLOYMENT SITUATION AND I AM SURE SOMEONE IN YOUR STAFF CAN PROJECT THIS IDEA INTO THE FUTURE.
THANK YOU JACK jhildy@telus.net

UNEMPLOYMENT SOLUTION

The only jobs that are available today are the ones that exist right now. The problem is that the wrong people are holding some of these jobs ie: the “almost retired” people.
What if ALL the money that is presently being spent on unemployment was applied to this concept that I am suggesting, keeping in mind that the present unemployment as at 10% [American] and full employment is considered to be about 5%.
Reward [voluntarily] the oldest employee with the longest years of service in the work force a high percentage bridging of his wages to his pension age. With today’s technology, it should not be hard to set up a data base. It has long been known that an early retiree is quite likely to start a new business [creating jobs], or travel sooner [creating jobs], the employer who lost the voluntary retiree, hires a younger unemployed person that quite likely is facing foreclosure—and it goes on and on. I do not think this would cost any more than what is being spent now OVERALL and would be such a fair system in every respect. Conceivably, every student would know that there was a job waiting for him which would have to affect that student not falling through the cracks to the drug scene—plus every early retiree would know he is the solution to the unemployment problem. Just let your mind wander at what this nation would look like if or when a concept like this were in full swing. Again—this is a concept—it can be fine tuned by people a lot smarter and closer to the scene than I am.

6:47 am March 18, 2012

Joe Boyle wrote :

I don't have the intellectual horsepower to add much here, but I am glad that people who can think clearly like Charles Martin have not yet been beaten into silence. Although watch out for Obama's second term.

1:29 pm February 7, 2012

Sue wrote :

Drug abuse, which became widespread in the late 60's and early 70's has played a big role in these declines. Many of the males I know who have "dropped out" fell victim to excessive drug use at some point in their lives.
Also, do many of these men work under the table for cash? IS there any data on these observations.

9:07 pm February 6, 2012

Irwin wrote :

Murray is correct that changing society will require teaching people the rules of success.

The most important thing to fix is families. They are disintegrating and that is the most obvious source for the growing underclass.

We need to start a counter sexual revolution. We can start with my online book: